I stop trying to sleep after my first few attempts are interrupted by unspeakable nightmares. After that, I just lie still and do fake breathing whenever someone checks on me. In the morning, I’m released from the hospital and instructed to take it easy. Cressida asks me to record a few lines for a new Mockingjay propo. At lunch, I keep waiting for people to bring up Peeta’s appearance, but no one does. Someone must have seen it besides Finnick and me.
I have training, but Gale’s scheduled to work with Beetee on weapons or something, so I get permission to take Finnick to the woods. We wander around awhile and then ditch our communicators under a bush. When we’re a safe distance away, we sit and discuss Peeta’s broadcast.
«I haven’t heard one word about it. No one’s told you anything?» Finnick says. I shake my head. He pauses before he asks, «Not even Gale?» I’m clinging to a shred of hope that Gale honestly knows nothing about Peeta’s message. But I have a bad feeling he does. «Maybe he’s trying to find a time to tell you privately.»
«Maybe,» I say.
We stay silent so long that a buck wanders into range. I take it down with an arrow. Finnick hauls it back to the fence.
For dinner, there’s minced venison in the stew. Gale walks me back to Compartment E after we eat. When I ask him what’s been going on, again there’s no mention of Peeta. As soon as my mother and sister are asleep, I slip the pearl from the drawer and spend a second sleepless night clutching it in my hand, replaying Peeta’s words in my head. «Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with? Do you really know what’s going on? And if you don’t…find out.» Find out. What? From who? And how can Peeta know anything except what the Capitol tells him? It’s just a Capitol propo. More noise. But if Plutarch thinks it’s just the Capitol line, why didn’t he tell me about it? Why hasn’t anyone let me or Finnick know?
Under this debate lies the real source of my distress: Peeta. What have they done to him? And what are they doing to him right now? Clearly, Snow did not buy the story that Peeta and I knew nothing about the rebellion. And his suspicions have been reinforced, now that I have come out as the Mockingjay. Peeta can only guess about the rebel tactics or make up things to tell his torturers. Lies, once discovered, would be severely punished. How abandoned by me he must feel. In his first interview, he tried to protect me from the Capitol and rebels alike, and not only have I failed to protect him, I’ve brought down more horrors upon him.
Come morning, I stick my forearm in the wall and stare groggily at the day’s schedule. Immediately after breakfast, I am slated for Production. In the dining hall, as I down my hot grain and milk and mushy beets, I spot a communicuff on Gale’s wrist. «When did you get that back, Soldier Hawthorne?» I ask.
«Yesterday. They thought if I’m going to be in the field with you, it could be a backup system of communication,» says Gale.
No one has ever offered me a communicuff. I wonder, if I asked for one, would I get it? «Well, I guess one of us has to be accessible,» I say with an edge to my voice.
«What’s that mean?» he says.
«Nothing. Just repeating what you said,» I tell him. «And I totally agree that the accessible one should be you. I just hope I still have access to you as well.»
Our eyes lock, and I realize how furious I am with Gale. That I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t see Peeta’s propo. That I feel completely betrayed that he didn’t tell me about it. We know each other too well for him not to read my mood and guess what has caused it.
«Katniss—» he begins. Already the admission of guilt is in his tone.
I grab my tray, cross to the deposit area, and slam the dishes onto the rack. By the time I’m in the hallway, he’s caught up with me.
«Why didn’t you say something?» he asks, taking my arm.
«Why didn’tI ?» I jerk my arm free. «Why didn’tyou , Gale? And I did, by the way, when I asked you last night about what had been going on!»
«I’m sorry. All right? I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, but everyone was afraid that seeing Peeta’s propo would make you sick,» he says.
«They were right. It did. But not quite as sick as you lying to me for Coin.» At that moment, his communicuff starts beeping. «There she is. Better run. You have things to tell her.»
For a moment, real hurt registers on his face. Then cold anger replaces it. He turns on his heel and goes. Maybe I have been too spiteful, not given him enough time to explain. Maybe everyone is just trying to protect me by lying to me. I don’t care. I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good. Lie to Katniss about the rebellion so she doesn’t do anything crazy. Send her into the arena without a clue so we can fish her out. Don’t tell her about Peeta’s propo because it might make her sick, and it’s hard enough to get a decent performance out of her as it is.
I do feel sick. Heartsick. And too tired for a day of production. But I’m already at Remake, so I go in.
Today, I discover, we will be returning to District 12. Cressida wants to do unscripted interviews with Gale and me throwing light on our demolished city.
«If you’re both up for that,» says Cressida, looking closely at my face.
«Count me in,» I say. I stand, uncommunicative and stiff, a mannequin, as my prep team dresses me, does my hair, and dabs makeup on my face. Not enough to show, only enough to take the edge off the circles under my sleepless eyes.
Boggs escorts me down to the Hangar, but we don’t talk beyond a preliminary greeting. I’m grateful to be spared another exchange about my disobedience in 8, especially since his mask looks so uncomfortable.
At the last moment, I remember to send a message to my mother about my leaving 13, and stress that it won’t be dangerous. We board a hovercraft for the short ride to 12 and I’m directed to a seat at a table where Plutarch, Gale, and Cressida are poring over a map. Plutarch’s brimming with satisfaction as he shows me the before/after effects of the first couple of propos. The rebels, who were barely maintaining a foothold in several districts, have rallied. They have actually taken 3 and 11—the latter so crucial since it’s Panem’s main food supplier—and have made inroads in several other districts as well.
«Hopeful. Very hopeful indeed,» says Plutarch. «Fulvia’s going to have the first round ofWe Remember spots ready tonight, so we can target the individual districts with their dead. Finnick’s absolutely marvelous.»
«It’s painful to watch, actually,» says Cressida. «He knew so many of them personally.»
«That’s what makes it so effective,» says Plutarch. «Straight from the heart. You’re all doing beautifully. Coin could not be more pleased.»
Gale didn’t tell them, then. About my pretending not to see Peeta and my anger at their cover-up. But I guess it’s too little, too late, because I still can’t let it go. It doesn’t matter. He’s not speaking to me, either.
It’s not until we land in the Meadow that I realize Haymitch isn’t among our company. When I ask Plutarch about his absence, he just shakes his head and says, «He couldn’t face it.»
«Haymitch? Not able to face something? Wanted a day off, more likely,» I say.
«I think his actual words were ‘I couldn’t face it without a bottle,’» says Plutarch.
I roll my eyes, long out of patience with my mentor, his weakness for drink, and what he can or can’t confront. But about five minutes after my return to 12, I’m wishing I had a bottle myself. I thought I’d come to terms with 12’s demise—heard of it, seen it from the air, and wandered through its ashes. So why does everything bring on a fresh pang of grief? Was I simply too out of it before to fully register the loss of my world? Or is it the look on Gale’s face as he takes in the destruction on foot that makes the atrocity feel brand-new?
Cressida directs the team to start with me at my old house. I ask her what she wants me to do. «Whatever you feel like,» she says. Standing back in my kitchen, I don’t feel like doing anything. In fact, I find myself focusing up at the sky—the only roof left—because too many memories are drowning me. After a while, Cressida says, «That’s fine, Katniss. Let’s move on.»
Gale doesn’t get off so easily at his old address. Cressida films him in silence for a few minutes, but just as he pulls the one remnant of his previous life from the ashes—a twisted metal poker—she starts to question him about his family, his job, life in the Seam. She makes him go back to the night of the firebombing and reenact it, starting at his house, working his way down across the Meadow and through the woods to the lake. I straggle behind the film crew and the bodyguards, feeling their presence to be a violation of my beloved woods. This is a private place, a sanctuary, already corrupted by the Capitol’s evil. Even after we’ve left behind the charred stumps near the fence, we’re still tripping over decomposing bodies. Do we have to record it for everyone to see?
By the time we reach the lake, Gale seems to have lost his ability to speak. Everyone’s dripping in sweat—
